Journalism in a Web 2.0 World

Perhaps the best thing to happen to the current journalism field is the emergence of Web 2.0. This is a far cry from Web 1.0, which was characterized by simply linking webpages with hyperlinks. Web 2.0 and its emphasis on social media/web has brought about new avenues of news gathering for today’s journalists. Social media provide new outlets for readers to contribute to stories and to also break news themselves.

As mentioned before, social media is now playing a large role in the news industry. For the first time, readers of online publications have the ability to comment on a story immediately after it is published. Web 2.0 also allows writers to edit their stories any time they wish. By utilizing such Web 2.0 features like blogs and Twitter, reporters are now able to reach their audiences faster, more accurately and virtually anytime they wish. I’ll touch on Twitter more later.

One of the big differences between Web 1.0 & 2.0 is timeliness. I mentioned before that journalists today have the ability to edit stories after they’re published and can also report stories faster. Take newspapers as an example. In writing for newspapers, journalists are faced with set deadlines and a sense of finality when they publish their articles. They are not able to go back and edit out a mistake or add more content to the story. If they found an error for example, they’d have to wait until the next day to print a retraction or a corrected article.

Web 2.0 also offers journalists more ways to enhance their audience. Journalists are now able to narrow down their audience and target only the ones that are most beneficial to them. It also gives the reader/user more of a chance to find news that appeals directly to them, instead of having to wade through an entire newspaper just to read one section. Users on Twitter, for example, have the ability to follow people and receive updates from them. It is very user-centric as it allows you to choose the people you follow and to not follow/block people when necessary.

Accountability and ethics are two aspects of journalism that are sort of an unknown in regards to how they should be dealt with in a Web 2.0 world. The same basics would still apply, but the new social web devices for news distribution would be somewhat of a foreign concept to journalists. There would (eventually) need to be new legislation regarding online ethics and social media ethics. Writers can be held accountable much in the same ways as Web 1.0 journalists are. Most journalists who use Twitter or Blogs have their professional identity associated with those media, thus enabling an easy way to contact them or report something to them.

With further development of Web 2.0, it is likely that journalism will grow in ways never before imagined. Users will play an integral role as both the consumer and in some cases the distributor of news as well. Users will also integrate themselves more and will continue to assist professional journalists in their quest to adapt to this new online medium.

A Clear and Present Danger (not Harrison Ford)

From today's lecture, here's a closer look at the case Schenck v. United States from all the way back in 1919.

This case involved Charles Schenck, who was the Secretary of the Socialist Party of America in 1917. Schenck was responsible for printing, distributing, and mailing leaflets that stated his party’s opposition to the draft during World War I. The leaflets were opposed to the draft and urged readers to “do not submit to intimidation” and compared the draft to an act of involuntary servitude. Schenck was subsequently indicted and convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917.

This decision was soon after met with an appeal by Schenck. He took his case to the Supreme Court, claiming that his First Amendment rights had been violated. The Supreme Court eventually ruled against Schenck (who would go on to spend 6 months in jail), stating that his conviction was constitutional due to the First Amendment not giving protection to speech that encouraged insubordination.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the majority opinion in this case, set forward the “clear and present danger” test.  He wrote, “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.” According to Holmes, words that “are of such a nature to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”